Well-known Member

Unfortunately we're in a period of transition right now, and you have to make a compromise somewhere. If you're buying a HD panel, you will have a slightly softer image for SD content. (note: with HD LCD panels you should be sitting back around 3x the diagonal for SD content)

Or you could buy an SD panel (Sharp P50 series) and have fantastic looking SD content, but loose HD's resolution advantage.

LCD televisions that are not displaying a native resolution will always look rubbish up close - they're not designed to be viewed up close like that. LCDs, even HD panels, have several advantages over CRTs though - to begin with, there are no geometry issues (this means no "bendy lines" when they should be straight) there is no "blooming" (bright areas expand in size, losing detail) and as they don't have a thick glass panel, they do not suffer from glare, to name a few.

Make sure you have sharpness turned down to zero, or whatever value is "off." (my old Panasonic CRT didn't have numbers, but if the bar was below 50% it was actually negative, and softening the image)

Find something with a bright white image onscreen (preferably the whole screen being white) and adjust the contrast so that whites are still very white, but aren't blindingly bright.

Then, find something that is letterboxed, and set the display to 4:3, so the image is in a small frame. Turn the brightness right up, and you should notice that the letterboxed bars are brighter than the ones on the sides. Turn brightness down just to the point where the letterboxed bars blend in with the ones on the sides.

Set the colour temperature to "neutral" "warm" or "6500" (depending on what your TV gives you the option of) and as for saturation, this is something you'll just have to do by eye. Find a good source and play around with the "colour" control to get a good feel of how it works, and try to find a level that looks natural to you. If there is something on-screen with very strong reds, this will be a good reference point, as you'll really notice when it's been set too high, as reds will be "screaming" at you. I find it best to just get to this point and turn it down a few notches so that reds look naturally vivid, rather than being over-the-top.

If you want to set things up properly, I would recommend buying either "Digital Video Essentials" or "Avia Guide to Home Theater" as both discs have test-patterns designed to help you set up your display, and have some great information.

Well-known Member

Unfortunately a lot of people are buying HD panels when they either will not use HD content at all, or their primary source is not HD.

Your CRT television will be running SD content natively - this means that it does not have to alter the picture in any way to display it. The same applies to an SD LCD, such as the Sharp P50 series, which is why the image on-screen is sharp.

On a HD panel, the television has to "upscale" the SD image to fit the display, which basically means it has to create information out of nothing by using interpolation.

Here is what is displayed on a SD television:
As you can see, it's nice and sharp when displayed at its native resolution.

And here is how it will look on a HD television, as it has to be "upscaled"

As you can see, the picture is noticeably softer. However, with a HD signal, that large image will be pin-sharp, whereas it will have to be downsized to fit the older television, losing detail.

HD image on a HD panel:

HD image on a SD panel:
Notice how there is a loss of detail on the feathers.

Note: a television will not perform the scaling as well as either of these two examples, as it has to process 25/30/50/60 images per-second, so it will look a bit worse than this.

The difference is less noticeable here, as you'll be seeing it on a small monitor, but everything is magnified on a big display, so SD content will look worse, and HD content will look even better. (in my opinion HD doesn't really shine unless it's on a big display)

Guest

nice....i can see what you mean......especially with the bird feathers example.

I think that most people who buy lcds will buy a hd ready one (with dvi or hdni inputs) just so the tv does not become out dated soon after purchase. At the end of the day, no one wants to shell out all there hard earned notes on a tv that will be redundant soon.

But after replacing those relatively cheap (and probably very old!!) crts with very new and expensive lcds, people will expect a super pic.....

No one wants less for their money after all...ehh??

Unfortunaltey even after knowing that crt's were better for the sd broadcasts, I cant but help be unsatisfied with my pq.

Everyone that has come around, has said wow what a great looking set, but have very little to say about the picture.

So are we paying over the top for a piece of kit that we won't have much use out of ...for me the answer is yes.....with work i watch very little tv anyway......but i can tell you i was running around like a little schoolgirl with a crush when my tv arrived.......so i think that i will do my best with the pq, and will eventually forget about my old crt......

PS

I have seen hd broadcast in my local electrical retailer (i think it was telestra or something broadcast fronm europe), and they were very good on a 50' pionner plasma (he switched between 720 and 1080.....720 looked better)

Well-known Member

720p will look better, as 1080i is interlaced for a start, but 720p will be at, or very near to the television's native resolution. 1080i is quite a bit higher resolution, so it will have to be de-interlaced and downscaled, meaning that it will never look as good as 720p on a 720p display.

adam also said just try the cable and if i am not happy to return it. He answered a lot of my issues and i am confident that i will be able to get a good result. When i have a good pq up, i will try and post some pics